


Unlove(ly)

by TimelessAngelEyes



Series: GAY-TEEZ Universe [2]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: (sorry Mingi), Anal Sex, GAY-TEEZ Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Yeosang, Jongsang if you squint (at least on Jongho's part), M/M, Motherly Seonghwa, NSFW, Oral Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, acquaintance rape, actually it's definitely JongSang now (at least on Jongho's part!), but AU even from that since Mingi would never actually do such a thing :-(, canon compliant (sort of), minsang, woosang bffs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:26:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28745445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimelessAngelEyes/pseuds/TimelessAngelEyes
Summary: It was odd, Mingi thought, but he kind of loved it--loved the feeling of Yeosang's lush, little body twisting this way and that beneath him. He was so small compared to Mingi that Mingi could almost feel the entirety of his form as he lay like a blanket over him. Seize one jabbing, little wrist and it stilled; actually, it continued straining and tugging away, but Mingi could easily activate enough strength in his arms to negate its struggles completely. He could make that straining, little arm still. He could use his strength instead of being nice about it all the time. Because nice had gotten him nowhere, and he was sick of being alone.
Relationships: Choi Jongho/Kang Yeosang, Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Kang Yeosang/Song Mingi, Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Series: GAY-TEEZ Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2089710
Comments: 15
Kudos: 74





	1. One Rainy Afternoon

Mingi felt unloved. 

But then, anyone watching San and Wooyoung making goo-goo eyes at each other all afternoon while cuddling on the couch when the three of them were _supposed_ to be watching a movie together was the kind of thing that would make anyone feel their singlehood pretty sorely, he guessed. When Wonder Woman and her boyfriend got to their cozy inn room and started making bedroom eyes at each other, Wooyoung and San had managed to press even closer together (leaving an even more ridiculous-looking gap between them and the side of the couch Mingi sat on), practically melding into one creature with long, entwining limbs, their subtle, sideeye-fucking intensifying, and the electric prickle that always existed in the air between them ramping up all the more; even their breathing was in synch. Mingi wanted to roll his eyes. 

By the time the final battle was playing out, Mingi was aware of some kind of aggressive arm-rubbing happening in the periphery of his vision and knew the pair of them were about to bolt for one of their bedrooms. They just about made it to the end credits before they hopped up from the couch as one, making loud, random comments about how good the film had been and thanking Mingi for inviting them to watch it with him. Then, as Mingi had predicted, they all but vanished in a puff of giggly smoke.

Mingi let himself sink back into the couch, feeling sapped by an unpleasant tension he hadn't realized had been building in him throughout the film--not that he could even remember half of what had happened in it, he realized, even though he had literally _just_ watched it. WooSan's clear distraction throughout the movie had in turn distracted him too badly to concentrate on anything but the growing tension in the air.

Granted, Mingi had been having a lot of trouble concentrating in general lately. He missed entire chunks of group conversation--not that anyone really tended to notice--found himself oversleeping more often than not, which then set him off-balance for the rest of the day's schedule, whether they had work or not that day.

On the (somewhat more plentiful than usual, this year) rest days the band got at home like this one, he often found himself wandering into the kitchen for breakfast alone in the off-hours between breakfast and lunch (or, when it was _really_ bad, lunch and dinner), generally finding everyone already out and about or in the midst of their own day's schedules which, perhaps naturally, never included him. 

He spent entire days like that on his own, prowling the dorm restlessly, wasting half the day on needlessly drawn-out meal times by himself at the dining table, hoping to strike up a bit of conversation with whoever happened to sit himself down with his takeout food, and then just aimlessly scrolling through his social media when no one was around. His alternative was long hours lying on his bed in his single room listening to music on his phone or perhaps doing a bit of Pilates via YouTube when the fancy struck him. 

It struck him less and less these days. He found not just Pilates but all his hobbies and interests kind of falling to the wayside. What Mingi really wanted to do--what he missed very badly doing--was being ATEEZ; being out in front of the fans and the public, doing shows and interviews, fan events and touring-- _especially_ touring. When vivid, foreign vistas were flashing by outside the car window or non-Korean-looking fans were flocked by the dozens outside the Arrivals gate, waving Lightinys and clutching colorful signs with their names and faces on them--or even better, when there were entire concert halls' worth of them shouting ATEEZ's fan chants and singing their lyrics with them at their concerts--that was the best. That was when Mingi felt like he was living, where he soaked up all the zest of life, the juice that powered his passionate raps and blazing live performances.

All of that seemed so far away and unreal now, like something from another lifetime. Who was the dashing, alpha-confident Mingi who tore open his shirt and exploded onto the stage and made the fans scream in delight? That wasn't him, surely. He couldn't imagine anyone screaming in delight for _him_ \-- at least, not anyone around here. All there was here, it felt like, were these empty, dreary, gray rooms and hallways, bolstered up with dim electric light. It felt like there was no one here but him. 

That wasn't true, of course; most of the members were likely in on a rainy day like this, though Mingi hadn't really seen anyone but WooSan and a glimpse of Seonghwa-hyung earlier as he'd crossed into the kitchen to make himself some coffee or something. 

Mingi had retreated back to his bedroom by this point, wondering if he should just take a nap. But that feeling of restlessness was back again. The image of San's thumb rubbing up and down the bare stretch of Wooyoung's arm just below the edge of his t-shirt sleeve kept coming back to him. How annoying; how did those idiot lovebirds have the power to distract him not only when they were with him, but even when they weren't? With a frustrated grunt, Mingi sat back up. 

Through his bedroom wall, he could now hear Hongjoong-hyung's voice, talking on the phone or maybe testing out some new rap lyrics for one of the half-dozen songs he was always working on. So he _was_ home after all, Mingi thought, brightening. His fellow rap liner was one of the few members who was always willing to give Mingi the time of day--at least briefly--if he popped by. Perhaps a chat with him would relieve some of this restless feeling. 

As Mingi paused outside the hyungs' closed bedroom door, ready to knock, he could hear more clearly now that the steady stream of words was, indeed, an intense, new rap verse Hongjoong-hyung was clearly in the midst of composing. Mingi grinned to himself, impressed anew. Even on his days off, ATEEZ's petite powerhouse of a leader worked so hard. But then, Mingi thought with a pang, he knew why that was; Hongjoong-hyung had no choice but to compose his original creative works on his days off because his regular days were too jam-packed for that. After all, he had to do all the things the rest of the band did in a full day of work--dance practice, costume fittings, photo shoots, et cetera--plus more things afterward with management, things for the band. He went to meetings for planning, strategizing future concepts and promotions, prepping their next comeback, and whatever else would make them more and more successful. He spent long hours with the songwriters and choreographers too. 

He was so busy and important, Mingi thought. And smart. Hongjoong-hyung was so smart. He could always see right through Mingi, and even though that often meant he was there just in the nick of time with a kind word or grin and fistbump of encouragement when Mingi really needed it, it also meant he was too far above Mingi to actually be a fit match for him. Mingi could feel that instinctively, as much as he had wished otherwise in the past. He shouldn't bother his hyung during his precious, rare free time. With one last, regretful look at the closed door--that familiar, sibilant voice rising and falling rhythmically within--Mingi turned to keep walking down the hall. 

If Hongjoong-hyung was too busy to make Mingi feel better, perhaps he could go to Seonghwa-hyung instead. Seonghwa-hyung made it his business to make the members feel better when they were down, and was nice to everyone, always gave hugs when asked. But Mingi hesitated for some reason. Seonghwa-hyung's consoling, motherly hugs weren't exactly what he wanted right now; he wanted something a little, perhaps, _spicier_ than that. And that categorically excluded Seonghwa-hyung in Mingi's mind. It wasn't that he was unattractive--quite the opposite, in fact. But he was off-limits, and also... kind of unwelcoming for that sort of thing, Mingi felt. They didn't click enough for romance. In fact, Mingi had a sense his hyung didn't really like him all that much on a personal level, or at least, he was certainly not one of his favorites. Seonghwa-hyung always doted on Yeosang and San and Wooyoung and the others. They were his babies. He didn't really bother with Mingi (or Jongho either, he supposed, if he was being honest. But Jongho was very self-sufficient, kind of stand-offish anyway. He had his own things to do.), unless he was asked to. 

Also, Seonghwa-hyung belonged to Hongjoong-hyung romantically--that much was clear. Hongjoong-hyung was absolutely crazy about him, and no one should try to go between that, Mingi thought. It was too disrespectful after all their fearless leader did for them. No, he didn't want to go to Seonghwa-hyung right now.

But he wanted some love, wanted someone to hug, to cuddle with, and maybe more. Yunho was sometimes amenable, but he'd been a little distant lately. He was getting so popular these days... and he tended to hang out with Yeosang or Hongjoong-hyung a lot more now. Which was fine. Mingi and Yunho's deep friendship was built on long-standing closeness and rock-solid stability. They weren't the jealous, exclusive kind of BFFs like some, Mingi thought, and he could well understand his old friend's desire to broaden and maintain his friendships with the others too. That was key to good team chemistry, after all. And anyway, Yunho was out this weekend, visiting his parents. So that was a dead-end... 

Mingi wandered back out into the living room and found it still vacant. The kitchen was empty too--Seonghwa-hyung must have run out for something. After an aimless circuit of the common areas--during which time Mingi picked up a bag of instant ramyun, considered making some to eat, and then let it fall dejectedly back onto the kitchen counter--Mingi circled back toward the bedrooms. As he approached the door of San and Yunho's room, he could hear muffled loud music emanating from within, and beneath it--unsurprisingly--the presence of _other_ sounds; sounds that pricked up a primal part of his mind's attention. Well, it was nothing less than could be expected of WooSan, Mingi thought bitterly. Morning, noon or night, if they had free time, they knew how to make the most of their coupledom.

Feeling both more lonesome and a tad uneasy at the heightened stirring he felt in his guts, Mingi moved down the corridor to the next door. A light was on inside the room, a strip of it visible beneath the closed door, but all was silent within. No private activities likely happening behind this door, Mingi thought, and decided to try it. It was unlocked and opened to reveal a cozy Yeosang curled up in a baggy hoodie and sweatpants on a corner of his bed, reading webtoons on his phone. 

_Potential company at last_ , a corner of Mingi's mind thought happily. The other parts of it were just pleased to see Yeosang--on his own, for once, rather than tagging along after WooSan or being cooed at and doted upon by Jongho or Seonghwa-hyung. 

Mingi always liked an excuse to interact with Yeosang. He was not only a really sweet and likable guy, but super-adorable too--both personality-wise and, of course, _looks-wise_. Yeosang was unanimously recognized among the band and even among atiny as a god-tier visual, beautiful in an almost inhuman way like their legendary sunbaenim V from BTS, whom Yeosang wisely took as one of his idol role models. How Mingi would have loved to have had such an option--majestic beauty that stunned onlookers into submission with a mere gaze of his large, mesmerizing eyes framed by a poignantly beautiful face... Mingi would bet V never spent an _hour_ wandering alone and ignored through his band's dorm, much less a full day.

Yeosang had glanced up when he had heard the door open and flashed a brief smile of greeting when he saw it was Mingi. 

"Hey," he said.

Feeling encouraged, Mingi asked, "Whatcha doing?" and leaned his upper body through the doorway, testing his welcome. 

Yeosang turned his phone around neutrally--neither particularly inviting nor annoyed--giving Mingi a glimpse of colorful manhwa art before turning it back around. "Just reading."

"Can I join you? I'm bored," Mingi said, putting on his most plaintive, sad baby shark face. Yeosang chuckled and shifted a bit on his bed, as though to make room even though there was already plenty of space on either side of him for someone to sit down. 

Mingi went forward eagerly, closing the bedroom door behind him and settling himself cozily next to Yeosang. He leaned his back to the wall beside him, his arm right up against Yeosang's so that he could see down at his phone too. His friend was reading a nicely illustrated comic about high school students having a comedic discussion of some sort in their classroom, it seemed. San and Yeosang were big fans of webtoons and anime, and several of the other members watched and read things occasionally, Mingi knew. He had watched a little anime here and there too--usually with one of the other members when they were watching stuff on the living room TV--but he had never been all that interested. 

He wasn't interested now either, but he continued leaning in as though to read so he could enjoy the pleasant scent of Yeosang's freshly washed hair and skin. The mild, citrusy fragrance of their shared bathroom's soap was coming warmed off his smooth, white neck, visible above the baggy collar of his hoodie. Glancing down, Mingi could see a strip of his pale throat beneath it as well, a hint of delicate collarbone peeking out from the edge of the fabric. How nice it would be to touch that gentle ridge, he thought, his left thumb unconsciously sliding along the coverlet beneath it. The fabric was soft under the pad of his thumb, but cool to the touch; not warm and silky like Yeosang's collarbone would be--like Yeosang's skin would be. 

"Hey, Yeosang," Mingi said aloud. 

He was interrupted by a sudden escalation in the underbelly of the muffled noise coming through the wall from the next room. Mingi could feel the blood rushing to his face as a clear, repetitive squeaking of bed springs began sounding in a telltale rhythm. He threw a sidelong glance down at Yeosang, feeling oddly guilty even though he had done nothing to bring about this awkward situation. However, Yeosang looked perfectly nonplussed, showing no reaction whatsoever to the clear evidence of sexual activity raging among their bandmates in the next bedroom over.

It was unignorable to Mingi though. He could feel the nervous energy coursing through him, making him want to bounce a knee or wriggle his arms or do _something_ to get the frenetic charge out of him. So he laughed aloud and said a bit nervously, "Well, that's kind of awkward, huh?"

"Hmm?" Yeosang's eyes continued moving steadily back and forth down the screen as he read, his absorption utterly unbroken. Mingi was vaguely disappointed at this lack of reaction, since Yeosang--despite being able to maintain a straight face most of the time through his friends' outrageous capers--did have an adorable habit of crumpling helplessly in embarrassment when people got flirty. Mingi absolutely loved it when he reacted like that. It made his otherworldly, untouchable beauty more human suddenly, made him feel more relatable. Reachable. 

He wanted something like that now--something to make Yeosang reachable to him as they sat shoulder-to-shoulder in this small, intimately lit room. Something to make him look up and connect, to make him interact with Mingi for real.

"Well, you know," Mingi continued, deciding to go for the daring approach. He arched an eyebrow suggestively, his eyes boring into Yeosang's face and willing him to look up at him, to catch a little of the atmosphere too. "It's like we've got a front-row seat. We can practically hear everything going on in there, you know?" He paused to giggle, checking for any reaction.

But a distracted "Mmm," was all the response Mingi got from his companion, whose eyes remained glued to his phone, his thumb slowly scrolling down the series of comic panels as he read. Now Mingi was getting annoyed.

 _Pay attention to me_ , he thought, his body reacting almost without conscious prompting to clap a big hand down over the phone and snatch it away. Yeosang turned a wry look up at him at last. 

"Reading tax!" Mingi declared playfully, falling back on cuteness by force of habit. "You have to pay the toll to continue."

His tactics paid off as the wry look bloomed immediately into one of Yeosang's adorable, full-cheeked smiles.

"What are you, the troll under the bridge?" he asked, playing along. Mingi's heart gave a little leap. It wasn't quite the atmosphere he had been trying for, but his petite companion had caught onto _some_ kind of mood that could include Mingi at last. Mingi grinned, happy to finally be seen by him properly, to be interacting. It hadn't been so hard to get his attention after all. But then, Yeosang really was pretty sweet-tempered despite his standoffish nature and reputation for wry savagery, Mingi thought. And yeah, he really did have the world's prettiest smile...

"Yeah, I'm the Fix On Troll!" Mingi said, his ingenuity rising with his good humor. "You've gotta 'fix on' me to pay the toll."

Yeosang laughed. "You mean rap?"

"No, not that," Mingi said, an idea springing to mind. "You have to fix a _kiss_ on me!" 

_Slick_ , he congratulated himself. This felt like an inspired compromise between the playful mood Yeosang had bought into and the "spicier" one that still stirred in the depths of Mingi's guts. He wasn't even really sure what he was aiming for; only that he wanted to introduce the tang of his own mood here too. 

Yeosang's face was still lit with playfulness, but his voice held an undertone of confusion when he replied, "A kiss?"

"Yep." Mingi puckered his lips comically and tapped them in an aegyo-like fashion. "Smooch, smooch!"

Yeosang fell back laughing good-naturedly, his face squishing up as it did when he got shy. He raised a hand toward Mingi's face to ward off the suggested smooch but Mingi got him to remove it easily enough by dipping down to place a big, smacking kiss onto the interloping palm.

"Smoochy, smoochy!" Mingi repeated in a high, funny voice, puckering his lips exaggeratedly at Yeosang and leaning a little toward him.

"No!" the smaller boy laughed and, taking advantage of Mingi's distraction, deftly snatched his phone back from him. 

"Hey!" Mingi cried, as though he were the injured party. He tried to grab the phone back, resulting in a giggly tug-of-war that soon dissolved into a pillow-scattering, coverlet-rumpling tussle. At last, Yeosang triumphed, yanking the phone out of Mingi's hands and leaving them, instead (and quite satisfactorily, as far as Mingi was concerned), full of Yeosang.

"Got it!" Yeosang declared. He twisted himself so that he could hold the phone at arm's length in front of him and out of Mingi's reach. Clearly unaware that Mingi's attention had already shifted altogether away from the phone, Yeosang unlocked it with an air of victory, then made an unhappy sound when he saw the screen. "Aw, you made me lose my place! The whole chapter reloaded!"

But Mingi was no longer looking at the phone. He had stilled, his arms still wrapped around Yeosang's torso, one leg thrown over the smaller member's legs, cuddling his face into the back of Yeosang's nice-smelling sweater. Actually, it wasn't his sweater that smelled nice, Mingi thought, but his hair. Or maybe his skin, through the sweater. That slightly warmed, more fragrant version of their shared bathroom's soap was filling his nose again, except it was even more pleasant now because he could press his cheek and nose into Yeosang's warm back too. 

His arms felt glad to have something to hold and squeeze at last, as they'd been wanting. His right arm was around Yeosang's chest, giving it a satisfying armful of soft, fluffy material from the folds of the hoodie to hang onto. His left arm, however, wrapped a little lower around Yeosang's torso where the garment had ridden up and offered only a single, taut layer of fabric as a buffer between him and the warm, solid form of Yeosang's trim waist and hips. This gave Mingi a different kind of pleasing sensation--one that provided an altogether stronger sense of actually holding Yeosang; of the press of their two bodies together. 

Experimentally, Mingi shifted his left hand subtly so that it slipped under the hem of the hoodie and into the toasty, body heat-warmed interior world beneath the cloth. He didn't know why he was so surprised when his fingers encountered the soft, bare skin of Yeosang's belly, but they both started when he did.

"Hey!" Yeosang cried as a laugh bubbled up involuntarily out of him. He curled up ticklishly against the prodding hand and smacked playfully at Mingi's arm to make him remove it. 

But Mingi didn't want to let go. Instead, he pressed his hand flat against Yeosang's stomach, feeling the firmness of his abdominal muscles as they contracted beneath his touch. Intrigued, Mingi allowed his hand to squeeze a little... and explore. The grooves of Yeosang's abs felt nice beneath his silky skin... as was the curve of his waist where it met the gentle jut of one hard, little hip bone, peeking out just above the waistband of his pants. 

"Hey, Mingi--" Yeosang protested, but cut off with another ticklish flinch as Mingi's palm brushed over his waist. 

Mingi's ears pricked up. Along with the appealing way the slim body in his arms (and all its torso muscles, which Mingi could feel the least nuance of movement in at the moment--very excitingly) had twitched and curled up protectively when Yeosang had jerked, Mingi had heard the small, hitching intake of breath that had accompanied it. Why was that such an appealing sound, he wondered. Maybe because it seemed to indicate a breakdown of that impressive impassiveness Yeosang had that Mingi had been trying to surmount. The gasp was an admission of vulnerability; Yeosang had felt that. Mingi was pleased.

Somehow or other, his face had found its way further up Yeosang's back now, right behind the smooth, exposed nape he had been admiring earlier. Surrendering to its mysterious pull, Mingi leaned in to nuzzle it and, again, the fragrant smell of Yeosang's clean skin and hair filled his nose--the familiar soap scent having blossomed into something far more delicious with the mix of Yeosang's body heat and own unique smell beneath it. 

It was then that a portion of Mingi's mind registered with a little surprise but no real alarm that he was getting hard. To confirm, he shifted his hips a bit and felt the immediate, confirming prickle of pleasure where he made contact against Yeosang's bony hip. Bending the knee that wasn't currently thrown over Yeosang's legs, Mingi felt the gratifying sensation of supple, plump flesh press back on the hard, flat plane of his thigh. Whatever else was hard and bony about him, Yeosang's _assets_ were plenty nice and pliant, he thought, delighted by the stupid pun that he normally would have smacked himself in the head for if it had come to him while he was writing rap verses or really any other time but now. 

Because _right now_ , Mingi was good, actually. _Right now_ , for once, Mingi wasn't in the mood to berate himself for his endless inadequacies and clumsiness like he normally would do. He was feeling good and he wanted to stay that way, because it was more than just "good" that he felt--he was downright _giddy_ , filled with that sunny day endorphin high that he had done without for ages, being cooped up inside due to the pandemic and their endless schedule and even their growing celebrity. Best of all, he was feeling the heat; feeling... desire.

 _I love my desire_ , he thought automatically, the sultry beats of their sexy b-side instantly booming into his mental soundscape by association. The music brought back muscle memory to him, of sultrily rocking his torso, letting his hips really grind and move in a way that would feel great to do horizontally too, especially with a warm body in his arms. _A warm body with warm skin..._

The rapid train of thought sent his left hand--still pressed to Yeosang's stomach--instantly moving as though commanded. It caressed its way up the warm skin already beneath it and committed to really _savoring_ the feel of it this time. The nerve endings in his fingertips were in some kind of overdrive now; Mingi could _feel_ so much just from what his hand was passing over, brushing against. When he reached the tiny, hardening nub of Yeosang's nipple, his fingertips rubbed up onto it without hesitation, over and over, swirling the pads of his fingers gently over it in little circles.

He was vaguely aware of Yeosang gasping aloud, or maybe crying out? He was much more preoccupied with the way Yeosang's whole body had shuddered violently against his chest, and the way his legs had suddenly begun to kick and twist, trying to pull out of the snare of Mingi's legs. Mingi tightened them automatically. This wasn't the time to let these pleasurable explorations end--they had only just started! And Mingi's body felt--quite reasonably--that it deserved a good, hearty dose of tactile happiness considering how long the touch-famine leading up to this had been. After all, it had been working so hard, enduring such stress, and had done without touch and closeness and racy explorations like this for so long. It was definitely not time to end this yet.

Yeosang was saying something, but Mingi couldn't really focus on things like talking just now. His nerves were on fire and his mind was ablaze with the scintillating data all his nerve endings were sending back to him. In addition to all the delectable tactile information, there was that scent too--Yeosang's increasingly intoxicating scent. Holy crow tits, did it smell _amazing_ now, and only seemed to be getting stronger as Yeosang began to move more, wriggling and twisting against the cage of Mingi's arms. Mingi just had to get a better sniff, bury his nose into that smell if he could. So he did just that--pressed his whole face into the bare skin at Yeosang's nape, breathed in deeply and felt his pleasure centers light up like the New Year's sky at the stroke of midnight. 

How had he forgotten how good this was? Well, maybe it was because he'd never had Yeosang before and Yeosang just smelled better than everyone else on earth. It would make perfect sense, his half-incoherent conscious mind babbled in an increasingly tiny corner of his brain--after all, Yeosang _looked_ better than just about everyone else on earth, so of course, he would smell better, feel better to touch. Maybe taste better too. 

The idea had barely processed in his brain before he was leaning himself over Yeosang's shoulder, pressing his needy lips at last to Yeosang's soft, pink, parted ones. 

_Fireworks._

That was all Mingi could really see, hear and feel for a moment as his mouth drank and stroked and sucked in what felt like pure endorphins. When he came back to himself, he found his body in a whirlwind of action. Without fully knowing why, he had risen up on his knees and all but flung Yeosang flat onto his back, grabbing for the hoodie's zipper as it came into view. All he really knew for sure was that he was desperate to get this big, cumbersome bag of cloth off of Yeosang _right now._

His fingers fumbled with the zipper, suddenly grown huge and clumsy. When his grip slipped from the tiny zipper tab one times too many for his sanity, Mingi finally resorted to just tearing the metal closure apart with brute strength. He heard a rip as the stitches holding the zipper to the hoodie itself tore, along with another seam or two elsewhere. But even with his forceful tug, the hoodie still more or less held itself intact, had yielded far too little of that hot skin and tight body beneath it that Mingi desperately sought. So he began ripping and pulling even harder, tearing actual fabric.

 _What am I doing?_ a part of his brain wondered, noting that tearing up clothes was not a normal activity, and rather wasteful besides. 

Honestly, Mingi wasn't sure. He really couldn't say what had come over him--why was he okay damaging this nice hoodie? But he realized with a start, that he _was_ okay with it--by god, he was! He was literally tearing the sturdy fabric apart at the seams! The zipper tab had gone flying--ripped clean off its track as he succeeded in yanking the garment wide open. There it was--there was that tantalizing skin, that solid, slender body hiding beneath all the fluffy material--hot and smooth and silky, he wanted to feel that skin! He needed all this fabric gone, out of the way! He persisted as Yeosang's increasingly angry and alarmed cries continued flying past his head, as bony elbows and small, hard forearms tried to shove him away. The pushes made him want to come closer--closer and closer to that fragrant skin.

It was odd, Mingi thought, but he kind of loved it--loved the feeling of Yeosang's lush, little body twisting this way and that beneath him. He was so small compared to Mingi that Mingi could almost feel the entirety of his form as he lay like a blanket over him. Seize one jabbing, little wrist and it stilled; actually, it continued straining and tugging away, but Mingi could easily activate enough strength in his arms to negate its struggles completely. He could make that straining, little arm still. He could use his strength.

Yeosang yelped as he tightened his grip. It was a yelp of pain, but it excited Mingi, made that heated part of him think about Yeosang moaning in passion like the two next door. Yeosang was so shy, so cute, so perfect, so proper, so untouchable. Lovely and remote... like a proud queen, an icy beauty... a doll with timeless angel eyes and silken white skin... So lovely, so beautiful. He looked exactly the way Mingi wished he looked--god-given beauty that made anyone stop and stare and want to go to him, be close to him. 

Want. Everyone wanted Yeosang. Everyone tried to hug him, to touch him, to wipe his mouth for him and feed him, pet his hair, cuddle him. And Yeosang let the members, for the most part, do as they wished. He had an odd attitude for one so beautiful, Mingi thought; pretty girls at school would always keep themselves fully away from the hordes that wanted them. Yeosang sometimes seemed inclined that way too, though it was also true that he just as often let himself be touched and hugged and petted and handled by the others; gave himself over, it seemed, to their little enjoyments of him as though it were his responsibility or something. 

But even then, he sometimes shied away from Mingi. That hurt, honestly. Mingi knew he was far from the kind of loveliness that Yeosang basically sat on top of, but he was still lovable, wasn't he? At least, he still wanted to be loved. There were fans--atinys--who loved him. But the atinys were so far away now... they couldn't see their atinys this year, they couldn't see anyone. It was just him and the members, here in this little apartment or at the studio or in the practice room, day after day after day. That was all. And they often kind of ignored him, left him on his own. He didn't want to be alone. He wanted to be wanted, he wanted to be loved. He wanted to be close to someone.

And he wanted to fuck, all right? Everyone else was fucking! Why couldn't he fuck?

Yeosang didn't fuck. He wasn't attached like most of the others were. Yeosang could do it with Mingi, perhaps he _should_. Everyone else was doing it. Mingi wanted to do it. 

He gripped the elastic waist of Yeosang's sweatpants and yanked down, hard. It seemed he had caught his underwear too, because in an instant, there was a stretch of smooth, white, starkly bare--extremely naked--skin there, along with exposed genitals, luscious globes of ass--all there, all right there in front of him! The nameless _scent_ of Yeosang hit Mingi's nostrils even harder than ever, made them flare up and prickle like a hunting dog scenting a hind on the wind. 

Want. Want. Want. That was all that sounded through Mingi's mind as he stared down at the unveiled feast, at the beautiful, forbidden bulbs there that had nothing to do with daily life and everything to do with tongues and mouths and saliva and heat and, oh, how they belonged with those things, especially _Mingi's_ mouth and lips and tongue and saliva, now, oh yes, now, he was salivating. Yeosang's bounty lay before him, revealed, exposed, accessible to him. He just had to lean down and help himself to a luscious mouthful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahaha, sorry to end there. ^^; Warning: next chapter will be much more explicit and will pick up right where we left off, in Yeosang's POV. 
> 
> My apologies to Mingi (and Yeosang) -- this is a work of complete and utter fiction, please make no mistake of that. Sometimes, you just have to go along to whatever strange places your muse takes you...


	2. Yeosang

Yeosang could barely understand what was happening. How had he suddenly found himself in this utterly bizarre position and situation? Hadn't he just been reading about Class 2-A's plan to host a zombie cafe for the school festival? 

But now, all of a sudden, he found himself lying on his back at the foot-end of his bed, Mingi on top of him, his head bending down between Yeosang's legs--which were naked. He was naked? Mingi was on top of him--the wan, cozy light of his bedside lamp highlighting the sleek contours of his coiffed hair and strong shoulders from behind--and Yeosang was naked? There were hands touching his bare skin--because he was naked. Naked? What was even happening?

"Stop!" Yeosang cried out, grasping for some anchor to normality--when, all of a sudden, nothing was normal anymore. He threw back his head and cried out as heat closed down around his penis--sweet, strange, far too immediate wet heat, that brought with it _pleasure_. 

_"Stop!"_ he gasped, and then a strange groan tore itself out of his throat. He shoved at Mingi's broad shoulders, but they were a solid, unbudging weight there, pressing down on his thighs. All of Mingi looked so large and unyielding, an unmovable mountain with a soft, warm, wet core that had swallowed him, engulfed his intimate parts and made unlooked-for pleasure prickle up and zing like lightning through him at alarming, overwhelming speeds. His heart was racing. He wanted this to stop--what was even happening?

"Stop it! Stop!" he wailed, aware of the moisture in his eyes, the alien rawness in his voice. Was he crying--sobbing, even? His nose ran. What was all this startling heat and contact and breath against his bare skin where there should have been none? 

Mingi wasn't stopping. His broad, handsome forehead crowned with the stylish shock of red-dyed hair remained rooted below, buried in his crotch, which lay frighteningly exposed and vulnerable due to the large pair of hands clenched painfully onto his thighs, holding them open. Hard thumbs dug into the sensitive flesh there, flesh that was unused to any kind of touching--

"No! No!" Yeosang kept repeating, the panic and pleasure making him insensible. He had no idea what he was saying, no idea what he was doing, what his hands were hitting or clutching or where they were at all. All he could really feel was that overbearing pleasure below building to a climax--his heart was about to burst from it. 

Thankfully, Mingi's roiling, heated, wetness suddenly pulled away from that pleasuring part, though a large hand immediately replaced it, trapping it again, gripped it a little too hard. God, how strange this was, how confusing. What was happening? So much pleasure had tingled and rippled through him--a shivery, frightening sweetness, Yeosang thought--when Mingi's large thumb had stroked up and over the head of it. But no--no, there was something else now. Wetness, more wetness, that hot, wriggling tongue--at his ass.

"NO! NO! STOP! NO!" Yeosang screamed, his flailing, skyward legs finding redoubled struggle within them. He bucked and writhed desperately, trying to stop the strange, wet intrusion at that nasty place. No, no, he _really_ didn't want that. Painful--something hard was digging into it now. Yucky--he felt like he was pooping, what was even happening? There was a sudden odd tingle--a little thrill of pleasure--but in a strange, deep place. What was happening? Had the world gone crazy? 

_"Stop,"_ Yeosang cried again, but it wasn't very loud or strong now; and it was definitely a sob. Moisture was clogging up his whole face and sinuses. He hated this. How he wanted this to stop. Sweat was slicking and stickying the skin on his thighs, his stomach and flanks, the places where Mingi's arms gripped him, all the places where flesh met flesh-- _his_ flesh, which was so unaccustomed to pressing against anything but nice dry, soft, sweat-wicking fabric. It was all so hot now, so sweaty; he didn't want this.

The confused sensations from his asshole abruptly coalesced into pain--much more pain. Something hard--the hard thing, it was larger, growing. Something more had been shoved into him, blunt and wiggling. It was stretching him, threatening to tear him open. It hurt and Yeosang screamed again for the pain. The large fist holding his penis repeated its stroking motion, and a confusing juxtaposition of intense, sweet pleasure against the grating, alarming pain jumbled together in his loins. What was this? What was even happening?

Suddenly, all thought left his head but one: pain. Such shocking, unbelievable pain. Yeosang screamed out with every ounce of everything within him in response to it. Immediately, a large hand came down to clamp over his mouth, squeezing and momentarily--terrifyingly--cutting his breath off before the thick finger that had landed at his nostrils shifted away. Out of the corner of his eyes, Yeosang could see Mingi's now-naked torso move... and his own hips moved with him.

"Oh god--" Yeosang choked out as the hand moved off his mouth and latched itself around one of his legs; the other hand gripped his other leg. Mingi began to thrust. It hurt. Mingi's face contorted; he looked like he was flying up somewhere, he looked alight, relieved and yet singing with tension, with rapture. Yeosang became aware of the sounds around him--the meaty slap of flesh hitting the wet, tingling globules of his ass cheeks, the creak of the bed springs beneath him, Mingi's deep, breathy groans of pleasure and satisfaction. He vaguely felt wetness and stinging and a building pleasure in some phantom place deep within him, though he felt _more_ keenly the sickening slickness of the heavy, wet, wormy thing sliding in and out of him, the bump of internal pressure and an uncomfortable ache of fullness every time Mingi's hips moved forward. It felt so alien, so strange, so queasy, while at the same time, an odd, warming pleasure was also being fed like a small fire from the intimate friction the movements generated. 

"So good, so good," Mingi murmured again and again, in time with the crisp, jutting, piston-like motions happening below. 

"No," Yeosang whispered, surprised by the whine--the keen--in his voice. "Please." He felt the awful, fluttery tingle in his chest and eyes; he was going to cry, to sob properly--deep, sad sobs. He didn't want this.

Mingi sighed deeply--his eyes closed, his nostrils flaring, and his strong, handsome jaw in great evidence as he leaned his head back, savoring the sensations. He looked so strange, Yeosang thought from below. So far-off and blissful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Yeosangie. @_@ Next chapter will be Mingi again, who is having a very, very different experience of these dreadful events...


	3. Mingi

Yeosang was good, so good--even sweeter than Mingi could have possibly dreamed. Had anything ever felt so good? He was so lovely and pale and slim and pretty, silver-blond hair lying in a fine, silky halo around his lovely face, which was puckered sweetly now, shimmering with sweat and moisture. Sweat glistened on the creamy skin of his shapely shoulders too--pink-tinged alabaster against the dark gray backdrop of his coverlet--the exquisite dip of the hollow between his collarbones thrown into clear contrast against the smooth expanse of his chest. The little brown nubs of his erect nipples in their caramel-brown aureoles... so cute and sweet and pert. Enticing. Mingi would have to nibble them later, when the pleasure wasn't so utterly perfect from this pace, this angle. He let his eyes caress the beautiful torso below him instead, trailing down the softly visible muscles in Yeosang's flat, white abdomen, which deepened every time Mingi thrusted and those lovely, acquiescent hips contracted along with him... 

Mingi sighed. How he loved this precious, rarefied view of Yeosang he was seeing now... How few had seen it? Yeosang... Beautiful Yeosang... Angel Yeosang lying beneath him, naked and flushed under a fine sheen of sweat because he was being made love to... by Mingi. How wonderful that thought was. Yeosang and Mingi, making love...

Yeosang, Yeosang, was there anything about him that wasn't to be adored? Mingi adored him. He was making Mingi feel so good and he was so damn beautiful. Mingi thought just then that he might love him.

Certainly, he loved his sweet, soft, little thighs against the bare skin of Mingi's chest, his well-shaped, hairless, white calves in the air beside his head. Even his sweet little feet with their perfect toes in his peripheral vision pleased him. Yeosang was so lovely, so lovely. And he--Mingi--was _inside_ Yeosang's tight, sweet, acquiescent heat now. Yeosang was his.

 _Kiss_. The thought echoed through Mingi's brain. It had felt so good just to kiss him. Why wasn't he kissing him now? His eyes caught sight of the soft, now-reddened lips that lay half-parted above that dainty, perfect chin.

 _Kiss_ , Mingi thought again, leaning down, down, his hips still moving in their pleasurable rhythm as his mouth reached out.

 _Yeosang_ , he said without words as his mouth made contact and his tongue slid into the wet, warm softness that was Yeosang. His lips formed the words in their own language as they suckled into the delicate, pink flesh beneath them. _Yeosang. Yeosang. Yeosang._

 _Yeosang is with me now_ , Mingi thought. _We're together. I'm with Yeosang. I'm not alone anymore._

And his heart swelled with a happiness that felt even better than the soaring orgasm his snugly held penis was rocketing him toward from below, thrust by thrust by thrust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading so far! Next chapter will be much longer--Yeosang gets himself rescued, and there will be aftermath.


	4. Rescue

Mingi kissed him. All the confused thoughts and sensations that had been swilling crazily around Yeosang's mind came to a sudden, stuttering halt when he registered what the hot, salty-tasting, mouth-stuffing sensation he was having now was. Mingi--still shoving repeatedly into him below--was now also kissing him on the mouth. _In_ the mouth, in fact.

That was the last straw. Yeosang couldn't take it anymore--he wanted this to end, _needed_ it to end. Whatever it took to get this hot breath and grasping mouth away from him, to stop the queasy, intrusive pain below, to stop Mingi's small, bright eyes from staring at him so.

He knew Wooyoung was just next door with San. He could call for him. He _would_ call for him.

With a hard, desperate shove against Mingi's broad shoulders and a twist of his head, Yeosang broke himself away from the grasping kiss, sucked in air, and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Wooyoung! Wooyoung!"

"Shh!" Mingi cried, his huge hand coming to cover his mouth again, but this time, Yeosang bared his teeth, nipped at whatever traces of palm and fingertips were near enough that Mingi darted his hand back in alarm. With his assailant momentarily taken aback, Yeosang was able to find enough leverage even in this laid-flat position to shove the heavy torso off his chest and suck in another lungful of air.

 _"Wooyoung!"_ he shouted again with all the volume and urgency he could muster. There--he had heard something. Was that a pause in the rhythmic undertones of noise next door, a muffled voice or two with a questioning inflection to them?

 _They heard me,_ Yeosang thought hopefully, his eyes turned expectantly on the door even as his arms continued straining to push Mingi away from him. But his moment of distraction proved foolish; Mingi was suddenly right in his face, his weight feeling like it had all but doubled, crushing him down, his mouth and nose all but swallowed by the large, wet mouth clamping messily down upon it. His right leg was then hoisted up so far that Yeosang's knee was practically in his own face. And Mingi's thing--god, it was agonizing; it seemed to have swollen and hardened even further, and he was ramming it even deeper and faster inside of him.

If Yeosang's mouth hadn't been full of big, slippery, writhing tongue--if he'd had any scrap of breath within him to make a sound--he would have screamed with everything he was worth. It hurt, _it hurt._ And worse, it felt so stomach-churningly invasive. He was skewered, that was what if felt like--skewered and helpless, a thing torn open and spitted, rocked and ridden and stretched and bared as his dominator pleased; and Yeosang was just miserably along for the ride, whatever it would be.

 _No! No! I won't let it happen!_ A furious, desperate part of his mind rebelled at the thought. He managed to tear a hand free from the crushing body encasing his and thrusted his balled fist at Mingi's broad throat as hard as he could--which, considering the awkward angle, wasn't actually very hard. But the crush of hard knuckles into his jugular was apparently enough to dislodge Mingi's mouth from Yeosang's as the former choked out a cough. This gave Yeosang enough space to shove his free hand into Mingi's throat again, succeeding in winning him another few inches of distance and free air.

From outside the door, he heard it--he was sure now--voices and footsteps.

"Wooyoung!" he screamed out one more time, and the door flew open. But it wasn't Wooyoung standing there, but an alarmed-looking Seonghwa, Hongjoong's concerned face just visible over his shoulder. 

"What--" Hongjoong exclaimed, but Seonghwa was already moving, his mouth clenched but his eyes wide, alight and horrified.

"Off!" he snapped at Mingi, shoving the large rapper back with one arm as though he weighed nothing. He was kneeling by Yeosang's side immediately, his slim forearms in their baggy-sleeved sweater settling like a comforting, soft buffer around Yeosang's shoulders. His long-fingered hands gently cupped Yeosang's face as his eyes--warmed with grief and concern--gazed into his. 

"Yeosangie," he said. Instantly, the tears redoubled their flow from Yeosang's eyes as he stared, suddenly helpless, back into his hyung's face.

"Get up, Mingi," Honjoong was ordering his fellow rap liner. There was a grim heaviness to his familiar, stern "Admonishing Dad" tone; none of the usual exasperated fondness that would normally underlie his lecturing was present now. It was this that Yeosang felt most underscored how far from normality these crazy circumstances had strayed them into today. The thought made him feel even more inconsolable somehow, and as soon as Mingi's weight had lifted entirely from him, he sat up and threw himself into Seonghwa's arms, pressing his sobbing face into his chest, curling himself as fully as he could into the long, warm arms that wrapped securely about him. Seonghwa began almost automatically to rock him, bobbing gently back and forth, his chin tucked over the touseled, blond head pressed beneath it. 

More warmth came in the form of a blanket Hongjoong had come to drape hastily over his friend's bare form. Seonghwa caught it as it began to slip, re-wrapping his arms on the outside of the blanket so that he could hold it in place around Yeosang as he continued to soothe him, shooting a grateful glance up at his partner as he did so. 

Having done this, Hongjoong straightened and turned back to Mingi, who was standing half-cowering at the head of the bed, hastily zipping himself back up and turning a terrified, guilty face at their leader as the latter regarded him. 

"Mingi," Hongjoong said.

"I'm sorry," Mingi whispered immediately, his eyes dropping. After a moment, he repeated, his hands clenching and fidgeting, "I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean to--"

But at that moment, the door of San and Yunho's bedroom opened at last and the disheveled WooSan finally appeared, San still pulling his shirt down over his flat abdomen as he peered into the room behind his boyfriend. 

Wooyoung's face had fallen like a ton of bricks. His eyes huge, he tore into the room, reaching Yeosang's side and crouching before him in the space of a breath, his hands already reaching. Yeosang lifted himself out of Seonghwa's embrace and moved shakily toward his friend. As Wooyoung rose to sit beside him and engulf him in his arms, San hovered anxiously around them, looking concerned and alarmed as well, though also slightly confused.

"What happened?" he cried, his compassionate eyes distressed nonetheless as they took in Yeosang's teary face. Then he turned and caught sight of the sweaty, shirtless Mingi, still half-cringing in the corner beside Hongjoong, whose stiff posture immediately signaled his anger to the others. But before he could say a word, a sudden heaviness in the atmosphere--a heaviness of presence filling the doorway--registered in everyone's peripheral vision.

"What is this?" came a furious voice from the entrance of the room. Yeosang looked up, still somewhat dazed, to find a living inferno in the face of Jongho, standing framed in the doorway, still wearing his raincoat--having clearly just returned home. He seemed to have already grasped the situation, however. Yeosang stared at his face, mesmerized. To say the stolid, usually placid-looking maknae was livid with rage was an understatement; he looked like a volcano ready to blow. The set of his powerful arms and shoulders--always filled with latent strength, but seeming to be absolutely hulking with it now in his mounting fury--made his somewhat squat form seem to swell up and fill the entire doorway. 

His blazing eyes seared down Yeosang's pitiful form then shot immediately to Mingi. In three rapid strides, he was standing by his taller hyung, arms already swinging. It was like something out of a movie--one, two--and those balled, bruiser-like fists were pummeling Mingi's jaw like a sandbag. Yeosang could hear the crack of bone, heard Mingi's hard, grunting "oof" as his head snapped first to the right then the left in the blinding, two-hook assault. 

The only sound louder than Jongho's shriek of, _"Bastard! How could you?!"_ was Hongjoong's angry cry as he grabbed Jongho's shoulder and--rather amazingly, considering the physical difference in their size and strength--shoved him back, breaking the two apart. With a sharp word and commanding stare, he ordered the maknae back and seized Mingi's arm--not entirely without gentleness--to march him swiftly out of the room while the latter held his bleeding nose. 

They were gone before Yeosang could make much sense of it all. The next thing he was aware of was Jongho crouching on the floor before him, his big, dark eyes wet and filled with abject misery as he looked up into Yeosang's face. Yeosang felt a familiar surge of protectiveness--who was making poor Jongho sad?--jumbled in on top of all the other upset and confused thoughts swirling around his head. There was so much chaos, so much not-normal activity happening here in his comfy, lamplit bedroom while the rain carried on drizzling against the windowpanes outside, that his mind didn't seem to know what to do with it all. He couldn't even grasp the words Jongho was saying; only his eyes--bright with welled tears and a torrent of distressed emotion--registered, along with an unpleasant, sour, stale smell that got stronger every time Yeosang moved his right hand near his face to brush back hair or swipe at his eyes, he realized.

He was vaguely aware of Jongho's low, steady stream of words cutting off when he raised his right hand to his nose to sniff curiously. That was when he noticed how sticky and crusty it felt. Some kind of viscous goo had dried on it, and the queasy smell seemed to be coming from it.

The realization of what it was hit Yeosang like a sledgehammer. How had he gotten that on himself--on his _hand_ , his mind wondered while his gorge rose of its own accord. He automatically clamped his raised hand to his mouth to stop the dry heave, but unfortunately, this brought _that smell_ even sharper into his nostrils. Yeosang's whole body heaved then, but he kept his mouth shut desperately against the rising bile. 

Seeing this, Seonghwa had immediately reached out to press Yeosang's head down between his knees, shouting orders to the others to bring a bowl, hot water and a clean dishcloth, a bottle of tea for Yeosang to drink. The hovering cluster of anxious, unhappy bodies leapt straight into action--that had always been ATEEZ's forte, after all--hastening to get the things Seonghwa had called for. As the need to retch receded, Yeosang raised his head back up shakily, aware of Wooyoung holding his shoulders again, a large, empty bowl balanced on his lap before him, while Seonghwa continued rubbing his back soothingly, just where Yeosang's own mother used to rub in gentle circles when he was sick and feeling nauseous. 

"I'm okay," Yeosang murmured, raising himself fully back up, though he kept his eyes down on the empty bowl.

"Let's get you cleaned up," Seonghwa said, taking his right hand and pressing something pleasantly warm and moist into it. Beside Seonghwa, San hovered, holding a bowl of steaming water for him to dip the damp washcloth into. Yeosang held still, allowing his hyung to clean his hand while accepting the fistful of tissues San had helpfully extracted from a nearby tissue box and was offering to him. As he wiped the tears and sweat from his face with the tissues, Jongho reappeared with both an unopened bottle of iced oolong tea and a mug of warm water. Yeosang accepted the latter, the warm liquid easing some of the ice and stiffness that seemed to be filling his body after its ordeal. 

From the hallway, they could hear Hongjoong on the phone with their head manager. Yeosang closed his eyes, not wanting to think about the fact that the managers were going to have to know about this. Probably all of upper management at KQ was going to have to know about this. How would he handle talking to them about such a thing? Would he have to speak to them directly? How would their eyes look at him, knowing what had happened?

"Do you want to take a shower?" Seonghwa asked him, giving him a blessed distraction from his thoughts. 

"Or, I can draw you a bath!" San offered helpfully. "A nice, hot bath?" His sweetly hopeful, eager-to-please expression made Yeosang smile a little in spite of himself. Poor San, this wasn't the sort of situation for a joyful, innocent heart like his to witness. He was like an eager, happy puppy. So kind. They were all so kind, he thought, finally really looking around and seeing the members gathered around him, their eyes filled with living concern and care for him. Even Mingi's eyes--

But no, Yeosang could not think about Mingi just yet. He forced himself to focus on those here around him now, centered himself lastly on Wooyoung's familiar, dear face, and then gave them all a small, reassuring nod. 

"That sounds good, San," he said, pleased his voice sounded mostly normal, if a little more raw than usual. 

"Is that a good idea with--" Wooyoung cut off, shooting an uncertain glance at his hyung, who also seemed to be hesitating over a certain thought. 

"Go ahead and fill the tub," Seonghwa said at last to San, who scurried off straightaway. He then turned back to Yeosang. 

"It--it might sting," he said at last, the hesitation and apology thick in his voice for having to bring up the topic. "Depending on if there's any... damage..."

There certainly would be damage, Yeosang thought. All kinds of damage. But the tactile comfort of a hot bath sounded wonderful to him right now--anything that could make him warm and clean and human again, and not so banged-up and filthy like he felt now.

Correctly intrepreting his mood, Wooyoung said quickly, "You can try it and then just hop out again if it's not good." He rose and Yeosang rose up with him. Wooyoung continued rubbing his shoulders encouragingly as Yeosang began to lead them stiffly out of the room. "Don't worry about scrubbing off first even--unless you want to, I mean. You can just sink in and relax. We'll just drain the tub after."

Yeosang nodded, feeling reassured. "Thanks," he said.

"I-I'll bring you a clean towel!" Jongho cried, hurrying to where the clean linens were stored.

"Bring his robe too," they heard Seonghwa's voice behind them as the pair of old friends made their solemn, little march down the hall to the spacious, shared bathroom. Hongjoong straigthened alertly when he caught sight of them. He had been hovering at the end of the hallway, near the entrance of the living room, his eyes stormy as he tapped his darkened cellphone against his chin in thought. Beyond him, Yeosang caught a brief sight of Mingi's long legs jutting out from the couch where Hongjoong had probably seated him, though the rest of him was thankfully hidden from view. They were waiting for the managers to arrive, he knew.

 _Hongjoong-hyung will handle it_ , Yeosang thought. Normally, he tried not to pass off responsibilities, especially for important, unpleasant tasks. But right now, he took comfort in the fact that his capable hyung was more than equal to even a challenge as big as this one, and he could just shut off his brain and not think for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... now that we've gotten through the whole incident, I'm not sure where to take this story next. To explore the fallout, or not to explore the fallout? Hmm...
> 
> Thank you again for reading!


	5. In the Kitchen

Hongjoong had marched Mingi into the kitchen, grabbed the roll of paper towels and shoved it at him, his movements getting rougher as he went. This was followed by a bag of frozen rice that he pulled out of the freezer, slamming the door of it shut with more force than necessary, and then shoved into Mingi's hands--still fumbling with the paper towels--also with more force than was necessary, before finally turning and exploding at him.

"What the fuck, Mingi?!" he cried, whapping him sharply on the side of the head. "What the fuck?! What the fuck?!" He had hit him with each exclamation, as though to punctuate his question, highlight his fury. He made to smack him again but stopped as Mingi flinched automatically away from the blow, squeezing his eyes shut. Hongjoong took a deep, shuddering breath and lowered his hand, but his eyes remained alight, locked up at Mingi's cringing, miserable and somewhat bewildered face. Mingi merely stood there, not daring to move or meet Hongjoong's eyes, just clutching the perspiring bag of frozen rice and the semi-unraveled roll of paper towels in his arms while his nose continued to bleed. 

Finally, with a sigh, Hongjoong took the paper towels from his hands, ripped one off and pressed it to Mingi's upper lip to catch the blood pooling there. Mingi took it from him, automatically balled it up and pressed it gingerly to his nose. It felt broken; certainly, it hurt like crazy and felt hot and thick, like it was swelling up. That wouldn't surprise him; Jongho was so strong, it would be a miracle if something he punched at full strength _didn't_ break.

Mingi felt a shiver run through him. Jongho's expression--his _eyes_ \--when he had appeared out of nowhere and suddenly started swinging at him... Mingi could see the moment clearly in his mind's eye. It had been a shock--both the expression, the _rage_ , in that familiar face, and the pain that had come so immediately after it. It didn't feel real, except that the throbbing of his bumped head, where it had snapped back to hit the wall, and his gushing nose were physical proof that it had happened. 

Hongjoong had fallen back a little by now, leaning his back into the kitchen counter with a deeply frustrated sigh, his hands clutching its edge on either side of his waist. The forefinger of his right hand tapped against it agitatedly. Finally, he looked up to stare Mingi in the eyes again.

"How could you do that?" he said, his voice quiet and steady, though Mingi quailed a little at the undertone of fury still clearly within it. Hongjoong was terrifying when he was angry, _really_ angry. And this was clearly one of those times. Mingi swallowed. Anything he said was liable to get his head ripped off.

When Hongjoong's unblinking stare deepened into a glare of impatience, Mingi hastily babbled, "We--we were just fooling around."

Clearly, that had been the wrong thing to say.

Hongjoong exploded again, catapulting himself off the counter as though to pummel Mingi himself, when he made a sharp turn away from the cringing giant at the last moment and slammed his fist down on the countertop instead. He let out a choked roar of suppressed rage and pounded his fist down twice more, his whole body quivering with agitation.

"Fooling around, Mingi?!" he cried, whirling back around but keeping himself pressed against the counter, clearly using the physical space between them to will himself not to fly into a violent rage. "Fooling around?! You _raped_ him! How could you do that?!"

Mingi stared, his mouth slack in shock. _Rape?_

"Rape?" he echoed aloud. "I didn't rape-- We were just fooling around!"

"Did you see his face?" Hongjoong demanded, his eyes suddenly bright with pain and maybe tears. "Did you see him just now? He was crying."

"He was... crying?" It had come out as a question, but Mingi knew it was true. He could see it in his mind's eye clearly--Yeosang's crumpled brow and red nose and tear-streaked cheeks when he had pulled his face away from Seonghwa's chest and turned to go into Wooyong's arms, his shoulders hunched beneath the red plaid blanket wrapped around his naked, still-sweaty body. It was one of the many stark, jumbled, confused images that had gone jangling together in his head in a big, chaotic pile the second Seonghwa had opened the door and Mingi--so frustratingly close to coming but not quite there yet, despite his frantic efforts to finish once Yeosang had started calling for Wooyoung--had had to pull out mid-thrust, had had to deal with all the yelling and faces while both distracted by his body's frustration at his almost-climax and embarrassment to have been caught out at such an intimate moment. And then, when Jongho had come blazing in and punched him, the shock and pain of his broken nose had taken up his attention entirely.

"Yes, Mingi," Hongjoong was saying through gritted teeth. " _Crying_. Do you understand that? Do you understand _why?"_

"He..." Mingi began, retracing his memories. The tactile recall of a small, shuddering body against his chest, twisting, trying to pull its legs free, came back to him. Then, the knuckles in his throat, the anger in Yeosang's eyes in the split second before he had turned his head toward the door and bellowed for Wooyoung. Why had he called for Wooyoung? That had confused Mingi at the time too. He had only understood Yeosang was creating an interruption in the wonderful thing they were doing, something that would disturb the incredible climax he was racing toward. That had annoyed Mingi, which was why he had tried to speed up and stop Yeosang's shouting with more kisses, but he hadn't really stopped to think, at the time, why Yeosang had wanted that interruption, why he had called for Wooyoung... 

"He... didn't want it," Mingi concluded at last, slowly. Yeosang hadn't wanted to do it with Mingi.

 _Isn't that the definition of rape?_ a corner of his mind asked him dryly.

 _Rape?_ Mingi thought, bewildered. Rape? He had raped Yeosang? Meaning... Yeosang had been raped? Poor little Yeosang? Raped? Raped like the girls you heard about on news reports, walking home alone at night and pulled into an alleyway? A terrible image came into his mind of Yeosang being grabbed off a dark street by a black-masked man and pulled into a filthy alley, where the man ripped off all his clothes with a knife and then cupped his hulking body around Yeosang's poor, pale, little form, pushed him against the wall and then made him scream as he rocked their bodies together. He might even strangle Yeosang afterward--or slit his throat--to keep him quiet. Mingi shuddered. _That_ was rape. That was the thing that left someone crumpled naked and covered in muck on an alley floor to be found by a shocked shopkeeper the next morning. 

But Mingi had raped Yeosang? Had he? It was true he had made Yeosang scream and cry and fight--he could remember all that now, though it hadn't seemed important at the time. Mingi had been like that masked man--he had even actually ripped up Yeosang's hoodie, now that he thought back.

 _Oh my god,_ Mingi thought, the horror dawning across his mind. _I raped Yeosang._

"Oh no, oh no," Mingi whispered, tears immediately flooding his eyes. He began to cry without even a chance to hold it back. " _Yeosang,"_ he moaned, his crying escalating into sobs interspersed with hiccups. "I did that to... Oh no, oh no..." 

He turned pleading eyes toward Hongjoong, as though begging him to change what had happened, to fix this terrible situation. Hongjoong could only stare back at him, the tears welled in his own eyes but his gaze suddenly glassy. He looked numb somehow, as though he had gone into automatic shutdown from too much emotional overload. He stood from the counter and took Mingi's arm very calmly, pulling him toward the living room and then seating him on the couch.

"I need to call our managers," he said simply. "Wait here." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow, I guess we *are* continuing! The muse has deposited more story in my brain, so on we go... Thank you so much to those who commented and gave me ideas on where/how to continue this story. I really appreciate your feedback and readership! :-D


	6. Wreckage

_What happens now?_ That was the most prevalent question among the plethora echoing through Hongjoong's brain later that evening as he sat, freshly showered and dressed for bed, at his desk chair in his and Seonghwa's room. On the desk before him, his bedtime glass of water sat creating water rings on the bare wood of the tabletop rather than on one of the three coasters scattered near at hand around his haphazard worktop. He had been on his way into bed ahead of Seonghwa, who was still in the shower, when he had abruptly detoured from his path and simply sat down at his desk, staring into space. 

It was early yet for bed--barely eight o'clock--and Hongjoong didn't feel sleepy. But he did feel drained in a way after the hours of intense discussion he, the managers, and Mingi had had this afternoon (mainly himself and the managers; Mingi had only been consulted briefly--his nose examined and appropriately iced--before one of their managers had taken him to the discreet, idol-frequented urgent care clinic near KQ to have his head and nose injuries checked). Seonghwa had joined them after that, mainly just sitting close beside Hongjoong and listening silently while Hongjoong and the managers went over the situation. At some point, Seonghwa swapped places with Wooyoung so that the managers could consult him on Yeosang's condition, though Wooyoung had abruptly broken down and become too upset to be of much help. 

Ultimately, their female manager, Ms. Kim, was tasked with consulting Yeosang directly through his bedroom door, Jongho and San still sitting with him on the other side of it. Despite their protective attempts to fill in answers to awkward questions on his behalf, Yeosang had been surprisingly well-collected, calmly and firmly insisting that his injuries were very minor and did not require medical attention. The only other matters he addressed were to state that he had no interest in contacting the police at this time about the matter, and that his parents and family should absolutely not be informed of anything by KQ.

"I'll... speak to them myself. Eventually," was his last word on the matter. 

The empathetic Ms. Kim reassured him his will would be done to the letter, and bade him to try not to think about anything and just get some good rest for tonight.

"All of us will have our phones on all night if you need to contact us for anything, anything at all," she said. "Honestly, Yeosang-ah, don't feel bad if you need something from us, no matter what time it is. We'll be glad to do whatever we can."

Really, the managers had all been the very essence of sensitivity, support, and understanding, Hongjoong had thought as he'd watched the whole interaction. He was grateful they hadn't devolved into grief or panic or interrogation, as he might have expected (as he, himself, was rather inclined to do just then); it helped him keep it together through those first, chaotic hours, through the early dinner the managers ordered in for them, and which the members only half-heartedly ate at the managers' insistence. 

Jongho had taken a tray of food to Yeosang (Wooyoung still being too upset to do anything but stay in a compacted huddle beneath San's arm), who had sent it back immediately, even though their head manager had strategically ordered his favorite BBQ Chicken brand of yangnyeom chicken for them. This was the only single, brief moment when their head manager had let a tiny crack in his calm, competent veneer show through that day; Hongjoong caught the way his kindly, pudgy jaw had clenched for a moment, a pang of sadness in his eyes. 

The rest of the members had gathered around the dining table to hear the immediate game plan for the night from the managers (stay as grounded as you can, get to sleep early and rest as much as possible, help Yeosang out if he asks for anything, call them if they need help for him or for themselves in the middle of the night, etc). 

"We'll come again tomorrow morning," they had said before bidding them all an early good night. One of the managers packed a quick overnight bag for Mingi and took it with him when the lot of them left. They had told Hongjoong they would have him spend the night at one of their houses. The entire group seemed to release a silently held breath of some kind when Hongjoong had relayed this fact to them later that night, after the managers had gone. 

"I'll let Yeosang-hyung know," Jongho had promised before the lot of them had wished Yeosang a good night through his bedroom door and then dispersed themselves for the night. After a moment of hesitation, Seonghwa had returned to Yeosang's door and called softly through it. He was admitted a moment later by Jongho. 

Left on his own, Hongjoong had automatically gone through the motions of preparing for bed--flossing, brushing his teeth, showering, getting into his coziest pair of pajamas (his brain had told him with disturbing rationality that he needed the comfort). As he had been coming back down the hall, he had met Seonghwa slipping out of WooSangJong's room with a soft, honey-warm, "Good night," reverberating in his wake.

"Bathroom's free," Hongjoong had told him as he'd glanced over Hongjoong's bedtime attire in surprise. "I'm heading to bed early."

"I'll be quick and join you then," Seonghwa had said, dropping a swift and somewhat surprising peck on his cheek as he went by. It wasn't that anyone in the band _didn't_ know the two of them were romantically involved, but they more or less always refrained from overt PDA outside of their bedroom. Though the chaste kiss would have been nothing to comment on regardless, no matter who had given such a peck to whom within their touchy-feely band--it was a rare occurrence between the two of them specifically, perhaps _because_ kisses meant something between them. However, this one had almost been too unexpected and over too quick for Hongjoong to even really register it. He continued his mechanical march to their bedroom without pause or comment.

At last, in the stillness and quiet of his room, Hongjoong found that the questions he had held at bay for the past several hours were awaiting him like a pack of hungry dogs. Did ATEEZ have a future after something like this? Was there any going back from this? Would Yeosang quit the band? Would they have to kick Mingi out to keep him? Would any of them be able to look Mingi in the face again if he stayed?

 _How could I have prevented this?_ was the second-most-frequent question Hongjoong asked himself. Had he seen this coming? He had known Mingi was having trouble, isolating himself more and more--or perhaps, if he were honest, _being_ isolated in some ways. Not that there weren't other members who were also less in the thick of things, less often the life of the party in all the various permutations of ATEEZ member combinations. But he had sensed Mingi was getting perhaps more than his share of flack these days from the more boisterous members. 

Not that that justified any of what he had done this afternoon, of course. Hongjoong's heart clenched, his face contorting in pain again. Poor Yeosang. Poor, hapless, harmless Yeosang... He never did any wrong to anyone, always worked hard to keep up with the dances, did all he could in his bashful, quiet way to be a good idol, be a proper part of this extroverted group. Hongjoong had no idea how he was going to react to this after whatever shock he was under wore off. Would he crumble and retreat from everything? Would he leave the band--would he even be okay to live a normal life after this?

 _Yes, of course he will be,_ Hongjoong thought to himself in annoyance. His penchant for drama was running loose with his mind flooding with stressors. Yeosang would find a way through this--they would all help him with that as much as they could. But how would he feel about continuing in the band, living in this dorm? Would it be too much for him? Certainly, he couldn't just pick up and continue their jam-packed schedule now, which was stressful even under good mental conditions. And even if he showed up physically, would he have any ability to shine like an idol needed to during his brief but incredibly public appearances? 

No, there would definitely have to be some kind of hiatus for him... for them _both_. Perhaps permanent ones. 

"Oh god," Hongjoong muttered out loud into the empty room, letting his head fall forward so he could press his face into the heels of his hands, against the throbbing behind his eyelids. Just as ATEEZ was really getting out there, just as their fanbase was reaching the tipping point into critical mass when big awards could be fought for, maybe even won... What kind of blow would this drop in manpower--and the likely scandal the press were bound to play up around the sudden loss of _two_ of its members at once--do to their hard-won momentum? 

And the media--the media was so capricious. They had managed to work themselves into a good light with them after much time and effort spent, but that didn't mean they wouldn't turn on ATEEZ in a heartbeat if they smelled a scandal. And what a scandal this would be... How was ATEEZ going to explain such a drastic change to its roster? Two members going dark at once practically declared some kind of conflict had occurred. Rumors would begin... it was inevitable. The media would go straight to the police, to medical records, to relatives, to KQ interns--wherever they could think of to find a lead--and start their digging. If any of this came out, what would that do to poor Yeosang's life? And Mingi's?

Hongjoong closed his eyes, letting a heavy breath gush out of him as he let his head fall back against the headrest of his desk chair. Out of nowhere, a warm hand pressed gently against his temple. 

"You okay?" Seonghwa asked softly, his thumb starting a comforting stroking against Hongjoong's scalp. 

"Not really," Hongjoong murmured, keeping his eyes closed, though he could feel the furrow in his brow easing a little. 

"Mmh," was all Seonghwa replied, but he leaned down and pressed his nose lightly to the top of Hongjoong's head, half kissing, half nuzzling. The gentle weight there, and the reassurance of the contact, was comforting. Hongjoong could feel small puffs of Seonghwa's warm breath against his bare forehead and felt some of the chaos in his mind still a little in the face of the closeness, the tactile comfort. But soon enough, the anxious questions began edging their way back in, even amidst the solace of their wordless communion. Hongjoong tried to shut it out, concentrate on that gentle contact, but the voices and questions came flooding ever louder back into his mind as the physical silence in the room stretched, accompanied by a rising sense of panic and pressure to find the right solution.

At length, Hongjoong sighed in surrender and opened his eyes. There was no escaping from this. 

"I don't know how we recover from this," he admitted aloud, wondering if talking it out would help. But Seonghwa said nothing, only kept up his rhythmic stroking. Feeling oddly annoyed, Hongjoong sat up and caught Seonghwa's hand--gently--as he shifted, and pulled it down to hold in his grasp, pressing it comfortingly against his chest. He could feel Seonghwa's approval of the gesture in the way his hand turned to intertwine its fingers with his as well. 

Hongjoong tried again. 

"I know it's awful I'm thinking about this while Yeosang is probably having the worst night of his life right now, but I..." He shook his head, his grip tightening on Seonghwa's hand. "I'm terrified this means the end of ATEEZ."

"It won't be the end of ATEEZ," Seonghwa said at last, crouching down so that he could wrap his other arm around his lover and rest his chin on his shoulder. He sighed softly, letting his eyes--a little overbright with moisture again--lift upward to try to blink away the tears. "We may lose some members, but what we've built is larger than this. Strong enough to withstand this."

 _Lose some members?_ Hongjoong echoed, the words leaving a bitterness within him. It was true but he didn't want to think of it, didn't want the words to fall so easily from Seonghwa's mouth, even if he was right and, perhaps, being quite practical about it. But still.

Out loud, Hongjoong gave a small laugh and said, "You make us sound like a ship in a storm." 

Seonghwa chuffed out a soft laugh of his own. "Yeah," he agreed, and then they both said at the same time, "A _pirate ship._ " 

Seonghwa smiled, a comforting twinge of warmth filling his chest as he turned his head to share a glance with Hongjoong, as they often did whenever they found something funny or moving or _anything_ , really, and wanted to appreciate it together. But Hongjoong wasn't looking at him. He _was_ smiling--sadly--but his eyes were down, on the single, blue-painted ring finger nail on his hand, a bright, discordant blotch against the skin-colored clasp of his other fingernails and fingers around Seonghwa's hand. 

Hongjoong was thinking how the nail polish was a cerulean blue, like the waters of Saipan under its glorious, epic blue skies. He remembered that sea view so clearly... He had never seen such a beautiful hue of ocean, dusted with dazzling points of light where the sun's reflection fell upon the crystal waves. It had felt like they were in the Caribbean, where sails billowed in the balmy, famous trade winds, where adventures began and ships took sail, and pirate's gold glimmered on every treasure map and in every captain's eye as he led his crew out toward that horizon... 

But now look at them. Had he led his crew astray, headlong onto the rocks or into the perilous high seas of a hurricane? Was their voyage of adventure to end so soon, and in utter wreckage and ruin? There was no recovering from this, was there? No sunny heading to sail toward when such roiling seas surrounded them on all sides. The media, the band's morale, their packed schedule--the new single--the decisions about whatever changes would need to come in their roster, _the reaction of atiny_...! Who could stan a group where someone had raped someone else if this got out? Who would ever listen to their songs again, with that stain upon them?

 _Oh god, oh god,_ Hongjoong thought again. The room suddenly felt like it was spinning. The pressure to figure out a way through, to find a correct next step--especially as he had clearly and so spectacularly failed to steer them clear of this floating minefield in the first place--was overwhelming. Even the close mooring of Seonghwa's warm body pressed against him wasn't enough to settle him this time. He needed an anchor, something big and sure and stable enough in this storm to anchor them--anchor _him_. Something he could rely on, to help him see clear, help him navigate them through this mess. A tall silhouette with a calm, thoughtful smile swam up in his fevered imaginings.

Half blindly, Hongjoong sat up and groped for his cellphone on the desk, letting Seonghwa's hand slip off of him as he did so. 

"I should call Yunho and let him know, tell him to come back. We've got to discuss things, all of us..."

"The managers said they would contact him tomorrow," Seonghwa said quietly. 

"He should know now. I'll call him," Hongjoong had replied, already unlocking his phone.

Seonghwa stood back and watched the back of his lover and band leader's head as he hit two buttons on his keypad screen--Yunho was on speed dial, apparently--and then clutched the phone to his ear, clinging to it as though to a lifeline. As the dial tone began to ring, Seonghwa watched Hongjoong's right foot begin to tap agitatedly. He thought about kneeling down and pressing a reassuring hand to the bouncing knee--then thought of instead pulling the phone away, opening Hongjoong's legs, pulling down the waistband of his pajama bottoms and taking him in his mouth right where he sat. 

But the white-knuckle grip of that hand on that phone stared him so hard in the face that Seonghwa did neither of those things. He just stepped back, said, "I'm gonna get some tea," and left the room just as Hongjoong leaned forward eagerly, saying into the phone, "Hey. Can you come home?"--and clearly not having heard Seonghwa at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eheheh, I'm back, after a quite a long while. ^.^; Sorry for the delay, everyone, and a true, sincere, HUGE thank you to those of you who kindly left comments in the interim letting me know you were still waiting for this story! :-D I had written the whole ending of the story last week but there were several chapters that would still need to go in between that I was kind of getting stuck/unmotivated to work on, so thank you so much for giving me the push I needed to get this chapter out! Next chapter is half-written (the much-requested Yunho's return! And it'll be as important to the story as you would expect, in several ways~), but it may take me a while depending on how motivated my muse is feeling this weekend, lol. Thank you so much again for reading and for all the encouraging comments! :-D


	7. Feng Shui

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was wrong... Yunho will be next chapter. ^^;; We need to spend a little more time on this night with Yeosang... and Jongho! Please enjoy, and thank you so much to all those who kindly left me reviews and kudos! XD I can't tell you how encouraging your words have been to me~ ♥

A bottle of tea, a bottle of water, an array of individually wrapped crackers, chocolate bars, and rice snacks, an energy jelly packet, and even a protein bar (from Jongho's own muscle-building nutritional supplements collection) lay in a neat set of two rows beside a well-stuffed tissue box on the bedside table. Balanced on the edge of the table beside the tissue box was Yeosang's cellphone, which Jongho had made sure was plugged in and charging. As a finishing touch, the maknae had even tucked a sweet-faced little lamb plushie from San's collection between the two beverage bottles, turning it so that its smile faced the bed and its occupant.

 _That's everything,_ Jongho thought, making one last micro-adjustment to the tissue box that angled it so tissues could be more easily drawn from the direction of the bed. He sat back on his heels and dared a brief glance up at Yeosang, who was sitting--clad in cozy pajamas and thoroughly wrapped up in two layers of throw blankets--in the middle of his bed. His eyes were dry but a little glassy, staring off at some point above the door of their spacious, shared bedroom. His brow was unfurrowed, his lips neutrally closed, his body--if not _relaxed_ , per se--not at all tensed or hunched up either. He was just sitting there quite neutrally, as though simply lost in thought on a regular evening before light's out.

If only it _were_ a regular evening, Jongho thought. But then, on a regular evening in their little shared bedroom, he would hardly dare to be here, so close to Yeosang's bed, handling things in his space. On a regular night, he would have kept himself officiously tucked away on his own bed, in his corner of the room, his back turned to the rest of it while he read or flipped through social media posts on his phone while listening to sappy OST ballads on his airpods. In short: making himself scarce so as not to impose on the pair of longtime friends and roommates who had suddenly been saddled with him. 

That was his plan tonight as well--to make himself scarce--but taken up a notch. Jongho threw one last, quick, sidelong glance up at the pale, wan face of his lovely hyung and looked away, trying not to let the superimposed image of his devastated, tear-streaked face from earlier take its place in the forefront of his mind, as it had been doing all evening. Poor, poor Yeosangie-hyung... Yeosang. Precious, dear, lovely Yeosang. _His_ precious, dear, lovely Yeosang. It killed Jongho to think what he had been through. And right here--right under Jongho's nose, practically-- _in their own room_ , for goodness' sake! He had failed-- _utterly_ \--to prevent a cruelty of such magnitude from befalling the one he most wanted to see kept away from all harm in this world...!

He couldn't imagine how his most cherished Yeosang was feeling right now... His trust in everything was surely shaken to the core. To have had the sanctity and safety of his most personal self violated like that--and by someone he lived with, was on such close and familiar terms with... Jongho shuddered internally. If such a thing should ever have befallen him--not that he wouldn't have thoroughly pummeled anyone who even tried, of course--he imagined he wouldn't want _anyone_ near him--perhaps ever, but certainly not tonight.

"Hyung," he said in a gentle but clear voice that sounded very loud in the stillness of the room. Keeping his eyes considerately lowered, he gestured toward the goods on Yeosang's night stand. "There's some food and drinks here if you get hungry during the night and don't want to go to the kitchen. Your phone's charging, so please feel free to call me or the managers or anyone else if you want anything, or even just to talk. Um," as a final consideration, he hopped up to grab the remote for the ductless air-conditioning and heating unit and set it on what little edge of space remained on the nightstand. "And here's the AC remote if you feel cold or anything. I think Wooyoung-hyung will be back from San's in a bit. But, um, if you need anything before he gets back, just text me--anytime, no worries. I probably won't be too sleepy tonight anyway. Anytime, seriously. I'll be happy to come bring you whatever you need."

Yeosang finally stirred, his large, dark eyes shifting over to Jongho for the first time. 

"Where are you going?"

Taking this as his cue, Jongho stood a bit uncomfortably and shuffled back a step or two, his eyes still lowered. 

"Um, I was going to sleep on the couch tonight. You... probably want to be alone." _So you can fully relax and hopefully feel safe enough to actually sleep,_ Jongho thought. Out loud, he said, "I'm all set for the night--my blankets and phone charger and stuff are already on the couch, so I won't come back in at all unless you call me for something. So... you can just go ahead and... you know, get some sleep. No one will come in and disturb you." After a brief hesitation, he couldn't help adding, "I'll make sure of that."

For he did, in fact, intend to spend the night keeping vigil--not because he thought Yeosang was actually in any kind of danger from the rest of his bandmates, but because--on the off-chance that Yeosang needed something and _did_ actually text him in the middle of the night, or (more likely) if he became overly upset and (god forbid) did anything that could endanger himself--Jongho intended to be awake to make sure he remained safe and that any and all of his needs would be met immediately upon request. 

Because this was all Jongho could do for him now. He couldn't hold Yeosang and cry with him and comfort him and swear he would keep him safe from all harm--he hadn't the right. He wasn't Yeosang's family or lover--he was barely even really his friend. More just a roommate and artistic partner as far as Yeosang was concerned, he was sure... So there was only so much that was fair for Jongho to presume to do for Yeosang at a time like this. It was Wooyoung who should be here, or maybe Seonghwa. But they were off dealing with this thing themselves, perhaps--when they really should have been here putting Yeosang's needs first.

A slight bitterness rippled through Jongho at the thought, though he was careful not to let even an inkling of it trickle into his face or aura. 

_I'm the one who'll always be here for you,_ he told Yeosang silently, though he still kept his eyes considerately averted. If only Yeosang would let him in, give him the place at his side from which Jongho could properly safeguard, cherish and support him, a place he would treasure and work to be worthy of all his life. 

But, no-- _What am I even thinking?_ he chastised himself. Now wasn't the time for such selfish ruminations. Tonight of all nights, Jongho thought, let the whole world trample him, run ruthlessly up and down over his heart and hopes and yearnings if it must. All that mattered was that he do absolutely everything he was permitted to do to help Yeosangie-hyung and ease his suffering, even just the tiniest bit more.

A small noise from the bed caught Jongho's attention. He dared a quick glance up and saw the first small spark of emotion in Yeosang's face since he had emerged from his long bath. He looked troubled, and his eyes met and stayed on Jongho's without fluttering skittishly away as they normally would have done. 

"Why?" Yeosang asked, his soft voice husky now, after its earlier rawness. 

Jongho blinked at him in surprise. 

_Why what?_ he wondered. Why--was Jongho so sure Yeosang wouldn't be disturbed? ("Because I'm going to sit up and make sure no one but Wooyoung comes in the room tonight.") Why--did Jongho assume Yeosang would sleep better without him in the room? ("Because you probably don't want any guy who could potentially do what Mingi did near you tonight--even though I would throw myself out a window before I EVER did such a thing to you!") Why--had such an awful and undeserved thing happened to Yeosang today? ("Because I'm a failure unworthy of someone as wondrous and beautiful as you, and so is this entire, filthy, out-of-control world.")

Jongho shut his eyes and took in a deep breath through his nose; it was no use letting his rage rise back up to the surface now. When he opened them again, he made them calm, gentle, before turning them back to Yeosang to answer him. 

"I want you to feel comfortable--as comfortable as you can be--tonight," he said, opting for option #2. He flashed his hyung a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, I'll be totally fine on the couch. Hongjoong-hyung's test-slept on it plenty of times already whenever he's in the doghouse, so I'm sure it'll be perfectly comfortable to sleep on. No worries at all."

He had hoped the little splash of humor might bring a smile, however briefly, to Yeosang's face, but his expression remained in its mostly blank, slightly perturbed state. Not knowing what else to do, Jongho decided he had best get going and leave Yeosang in peace. However, as he reached the door and turned back to send a last, "Good night, hyung. Text me if you need anything at all," over his shoulder, he saw that Yeosang had finally moved a little; his head had drooped down and his face looked suddenly stricken. No-- _ashamed._

"Hyung?" Jongho asked in alarm, turning back around and letting the door fall closed behind him again. Yeosang's eyes lifted to meet Jongho's from his downcast posture, creating positively the most heartbreakingly forlorn, abandoned expression Jongho had ever seen on that face. The sight was enough to nearly buckle his knees. 

"Hyung!" Jongho cried, dashing straight back to the bed and crouching down before it. Without thinking, he reached out to take Yeosang's hands where they were clenched in the coverlet beneath them. 

"No, it's okay, you don't have to stay," Yeosang said, a tear suddenly sliding down his cheek, followed quickly by another. He tried to pull his hands back from Jongho, though not very hard. Unsure whether it was good or bad, given the circumstances, to not release his grip, Jongho held on--firmly, but not too tightly. He wanted to convey his sincerity--how could he ever find his beloved Yeosangie-hyung shameful? How could he ever _not_ want to be near him?--but if Yeosang really wanted to, it was a grip the unexpectedly sturdy visual of ATEEZ was definitely strong enough to break.

"Hyung," Jongho said urgently, ducking down to try to catch his downcast gaze. "I'm _happy_ to stay, honestly. Please--believe me. I just... I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. If you want some time alone--"

"I don't," Yeosang answered, abruptly raising his eyes to meet Jongho's. He held them for a good ten seconds--his eyes fully aware again, alert and almost searching as he stared unflinchingly into Jongho's--before he let them drop back down in a more natural, neutral manner. He pulled his hands gently from Jongho's and Jongho let his grip fall away. He was now kneeling squarely on Yeosang's bed, facing him. Some part of him worried he was too close--possibly intimidating. But Yeosang's posture remained very unwary, nothing shrinking or repulsed in his manner. Jongho tentatively let himself breathe, let his hands fall naturally into his lap and his eyes settle attentively on Yeosang's face, waiting to hear what he would say. The few tears Yeosang had shed in his momentary outburst were drying untouched on his cheeks; Yeosang hadn't brushed them away, seeming not to have noticed either their start or stop.

"I'm happy to stay then, and keep you company," Jongho offered at length, into the silence. "Or to just sleep on my bed, if you prefer that--if you just want someone in the room with you."

Yeosang nodded, though his eyes remained down. It made Jongho uneasy, sensing Yeosang was thinking more about not inconveniencing Jongho than about what would be best for himself.

"Please don't even think about my comfort, Yeosangie-hyung," he said softly. "I don't want to sleep or be comfortable tonight if you aren't. I couldn't be."

"I don't think I can sleep," Yeosang murmured. He had sat back and raised his knees up to his chin, letting his arms drape loosely around them as he stared out into the center of the floor again. 

"Too... many thoughts?" Jongho asked gingerly. 

After a pause, Yeosang answered, "Too many memories."

Jongho smothered the intense zing of pain the words had shot through him, allowing not a modicum of it to show on his face. He willed the part of his mind that had instantly begun screaming again for Mingi's bloodied head under his fists to shut up and keep its inappropriate bloodlust away from this quiet, grieving space. It needed to be a place of calm, a place of healing. That was the kind of space he wanted to give Yeosangie-hyung--a space where he could think or do or say whatever he needed to right now. No matter how painful those words might be for Jongho to hear. 

_That's why they ran away,_ Jongho thought, sending a silent--perhaps unfair--curse after Wooyoung and Seonghwa and even Hongjoong, who was their leader after all. They hadn't wanted to be here to face the pain that the sweet, gentle Yeosang they all loved and knew so well had been subjected to, didn't want to endure the unpacking of it that would have to come. Well, Jongho wasn't going to run away. _Let it come, let it all come,_ he thought. He would take it. If he was to ever make up for his failure to protect Yeosangie-hyung, this was just the tip of the iceberg of what he deserved and could endure for him, he thought.

But as it happened, Yeosang said nothing more on the topic. The sudden rush of unconstrained tears and night of true, unchecked grieving would happen months from now, quite abruptly, on a cheerful summer evening when Jongho and a few of the others would be out on an overnight stay while taping a promotional video, and it would be Wooyoung and--somewhat unexpectedly--Hongjoong who would sit up all night crying with him and alternately holding him. It would be another several weeks after that before Yeosang visited his family for the weekend and calmly told them too.

Tonight, all Yeosang said was, "I tried to lie down earlier, but the view from my bed..." He shook his head, his eyes dry but downcast. 

"Maybe we could switch beds," Jongho suggested. Yeosang's large, beautiful eyes flashed up to meet his, a momentary spark within them. But then he glanced over at Jongho's lonely, exposed bed--off in its solitary stretch of the room by the door--and then glanced back around the cozy alcove his own bed was tucked within, across from Wooyoung's, which occupied the other alcove. Jongho examined his own unappealingly situated bed as well and had to agree that it didn't look very inviting, or like a place one could curl up and feel safe, what with the door opening up right upon it and the stark overhead light glaring down on it from above.

 _Too bad there's not a way to change to another room,_ he thought. At least, not tonight when the hyungs were all already settling in for some much-needed quiet and rest, and Yunho was out anyway. But wait--even if they couldn't change to another room, maybe they could change _their_ room?

 _Well, why not?_ he thought, throwing an evaluating glance down at Yeosang's bedframe. It had a solid-looking base with built-in storage drawers, but if they took out the drawers' contents, he thought he should be able to budge it along, even on his own. And after all, what were all these muscles for if he couldn't use them at a time like this to help the one he cherished so?

Invigorated by the thought, Jongho leapt to his feet and turned eagerly to Yeosang, declaring, "Hyung! Why don't we change the layout of the room? The _whole_ room? That way, the view of it will look different from everywhere--like a whole new room!"

Yeosang blinked slowly--once, twice--his mouth remaining in its neutral, closed line. At last, he asked a little doubtfully, "Can we do that?"

Jongho nodded. "Of course, we can! I can move these beds by myself--easily!" He gave the side of Yeosang's bedframe a hearty pat for emphasis then stepped back a little into the center of the room so that he could take an evaluating look around. The three beds were currently situated in the rectangular room against three of the walls--Yeosang's and Wooyoung's against the longer walls, pushed up against the interior corners where two natural alcoves accommodated the full lengths of their beds and left a substantial bit of open space on the floor between them. Jongho's bed was up against the shorter wall opposite the one WooSang's headboards were up against, with the door to their room at the foot end of his bed, on the same wall that Wooyoung's bed was against. This layout maximized the open space in the center of the room and also gave the three beds as much separation from one another as possible. 

But, Jongho thought as he turned in a slow circle to sweep the whole room under his considering gaze, there was enough room to turn the beds all the same direction and place them next to each other in a line--like rows of beds in a barracks--and leave a walkway at the foot of their beds to access the door. It would change the views from the beds, the placements of their bedside lamps, the entire vibe of the room. _Plus_ , if they were to put Yeosang's bed at the end by the far wall--farthest from the door and thus, the most privately placed--it should give him an added sense of security with Wooyoung's and Jongho's beds serving as a kind of buffer between where he slept and the outside world. 

He explained his idea to Yeosang and saw the spark of interest light his eyes again.

"But shouldn't we ask Wooyoung first?" Yeosang said at last. Jongho shook his head firmly.

"Wooyoung-hyung will be fine with it, especially if it helps you sleep. Nothing's more important than proper rest for idols!" Jongho declared. Yeosang's eyes softened a bit in a way that almost looked like a smile. He nodded.

"Okay," he agreed, then glanced around as though imagining the proposed new layout. After a moment, he asked, "But isn't it bad feng shui not to have airflow in the middle of the room?"

Jongho checked in surprise. "I... have no idea," he confessed, then added, "I didn't know you cared about things like feng shui, hyung."

Yeosang shrugged. "My mom always checked the feng shui of a room before we moved furniture. So I guess it feels normal for me to think about it."

"Oh, I see. I guess we could look it up." At Yeosang's eager nod, Jongho seated himself without thinking on his hyung's bed again, pulling his phone from his pajama pocket and opening a web browser search page. As he Navered bedroom feng shui do's and don'ts, he became aware of a prickling in the air on his left side. To his surprise and quickly suppressed delight, he realized Yeosang was leaning in right beside him, reading the article over his shoulder. Or to be more precise, right next to his left shoulder, so close that his long bangs almost brushed against Jongho's arm.

 _Now is not the time to be checking him out,_ Jongho ordered himself sternly and forced his attention to return to the feng shui article. It was titled, "Bringing the Best Feng Shui to your Bedroom" and actually offered some interesting tips about optimizing qi flow for optimal sleep and serenity. Also, which colors to decorate with to attract different types of good outcomes.

 _I should buy some red and peach-colored bedding,_ Jongho thought, noting that--at least by the standards of feng shui--his grim, manly gray-and-white sheet set was apparently not ideal for attracting romance and passion into his life. However, the article failed to mention anything about airflow, so Jongho suggested they try another article. When that, again, failed to confirm or negate Yeosang's assertion about blocking the center of a room's flow with furniture, Jongho resorted to asking the question in variously worded ways straight into Naver's search bar, bringing up a variety of answers from dubious sources. 

Some time around the fourth forum thread he pulled up to scan through various netizens' bedroom feng shui tips, Jongho felt the feather-light press of a warm cheek against his arm. A moment later, this was followed by Yeosang fully shifting closer to lean in and press his side comfortably up against the maknae's. Jongho kept his upright posture and continued flipping through forum results as though nothing at all wildly momentous and amazing was happening along one hemisphere of his body.

 _Relax. Be cool. Don't move. Just chill. Keep reading._ A steady stream of panicked commands was pounding through his mind, but from the outside, Jongho--Master of Dissimulation that he was--kept up the semblance of being totally relaxed and unperturbed, simply scrolling through the fruitless forum tips and then murmuring that he was going to check the next hit. At Yeosang's sound of agreement, he returned to the search results and clicked on the next link, only half-consciously absorbing the words his eyes were passing over.

_Yeosangie-hyung... is really... leaning his head on my shoulder..._

If this wasn't a fantasy he'd had countless times actually coming true... and at the strangest and most unexpected of times...! Jongho's mind was reeling from the surrealness of the situation. Yeosangie-hyung was touching him--of his own will--and in such a close, personal way... It was utterly shocking--even more so considering the present situation, of course--but also in general, because Yeosang tended to be fairly careful about touching Jongho, or of doing too much direct eye contact with him. Jongho understood why, of course; unspoken though it was, it was no secret between them that Jongho's heart had always belonged to his Yeosangie-hyung and probably always would. It still did now too, though Jongho--out of consideration for his hyung's shyness about such matters (and the need for them to be able to work well and closely together as bandmates)--never pressed the point or did anything in pursuit of his feelings these days. He could tell the answer would likely be "no" anyway, so why make a pest of himself and potentially drive Yeosang-hyung away as a friend and colleague?

Anyway, it had been Jongho's bad early on, coming on too strong--with his giddiness and excitement over his newfound heart's treasure--and scaring the (clearly, now that he looked back) sexually unawoken Yeosang with his frank interest. Seventeen-year-old Jongho had been heady with the ecstasy of new love, youthful egotism and brashness--and also too inexperienced in life yet to understand that his breathtakingly lovely and sweet hyung's agreeableness and non-rejections to his every small, "testing the waters" probes hadn't been because he had returned the maknae's romantic interest. As Jongho came to learn, Yeosang was just extremely easy-going and agreeable by nature, used to making those around him feel accommodated rather than prioritizing his own needs and feelings--which, perhaps, it was fair to say he didn't have the strongest grasp on himself either. 

The fact that this had led Jongho to make a bit of a fool of himself all during the WAVE era (and so much of it captured forever on-camera too, ugh!) was part of why he had grown so adept at smothering his own visible reactions and mastering the art of sneaking glances at Yeosang out of the corner of his eye--which was unexpectedly coming quite in handy right now. Yes, his heart was still hopeful despite its current holding pattern; it wasn't like there was _no_ chance his shy and unattached Yeosangie-hyung might someday have a change of heart as they continued their professional and friendly association over the years as members of ATEEZ. Jongho was in no hurry anyway; his own feelings, he felt, were something far purer and truer than a passing fancy and could surely stand the test of time. There was bound to come a day when Yeosang would finally turn around and see who had been faithfully by his side this whole time, wasn't there?

But all of this was ridiculous to consider right now, in this moment when romance and flirtation and anything in that line were not only utterly inappropriate but also probably the farthest thing from Yeosang's mind after what he had been through today. His poor hyung was clearly just after some solidarity--some non-romantic, non-invasive human contact as a means of comfort; maybe a way to prove to himself or to remind his body that touch could be kind and unaggressive too. A subtle sidelong glance at Yeosang's neutral face, eyes earnestly scanning back and forth as he read the article on the screen, quickly confirmed this (and killed whatever teeny, tiny, idiotic spark of hope that Jongho was embarrassed to find flaring up within his chest).

That was fine; that was just as it should be, in fact, Jongho thought. He was master of himself enough to trust that no matter how exciting or attractive this close proximity to Yeosang was to his body, he was in no danger of (and also in no mood at all to) make even the smallest prurient advance in this situation.

 _Yeosangie-hyung is wounded and sad right now,_ Jongho told himself, pleased to find absolutely everything within him responding to that idea with protectiveness and empathy and nothing else. _Yes_ , he thought, _Yeosangie-hyung is safe with me. And I'm going to do nothing but sit here and let him take whatever comfort he needs from me._

While these internal proclamations and affirmations had been raging in his mind, Jongho's body had continued to faithfully click and scan articles on feng shui with what scraps of consciousness it was able to commandeer. One long article he was currently scanning finally seemed to bear fruit, summoning his full consciousness to read more closely the paragraph he had just scanned. 

"Oh, looks like beds are okay to--" he began to say, half-turning to Yeosang and then freezing utterly, realizing with quickly muffled shock that Yeosang had fallen asleep on his shoulder. 

_He's going to wake up!_ Jongho thought in panic, trying to shift very carefully back into his original position so that Yeosang's head would be able to resettle at the comfortable angle it had been in before. Amazingly, despite all the movement and Jongho's half-blurted words, Yeosang remained fast asleep, his arms tucked together across his middle, his full, slumped body weight leaning against Jongho's side. Even after Jongho held his breath for several moments in anticipation of his waking, Yeosang remained soundly asleep. 

Jongho stayed perfectly still, head turned forward, phone clutched in one hand upon his right knee while Yeosang's sleep-limp form remained leaning against his left side. Not until a good few more minutes passed could Jongho truly bring himself to accept that his elusive hyung really was there on his shoulder, fast asleep. Asleep... _actually_ asleep. It was some kind of small miracle, Jongho thought, that on this night of all nights, sleep had actually managed to find him, even in this improbable place...

Or maybe it was _because_ of the improbable setting--propped up on Jongho's shoulder reading about such dry, mundane things as furniture-arranging--that Yeosang's guard had lowered sufficiently for his exhaustion to overtake him. At length, Jongho dared to turn his head to look down at Yeosang's slumbering face. He looked wan and worn down--worn with a weariness borne from sadness rather than physical fatigue--but peaceful enough, lost in the relief of sleep and all the regenerative things its respite would bring him. Jongho's heart welled with relief and gratitude for it--this was what he needed now. A chance for healing. He was grateful--but even more than that, surprised. And moved.

 _He trusts me,_ Jongho thought, the warming rush of happiness the thought brought him also sending a prickle of moisture to his eyes. It meant so much, that; in Yeosangie-hyung's time of need, he trusted Jongho to be good to him, to be able and willing to help him sincerely, rather than to scorn him or take advantage of him in his vulnerability. 

Some awful, sappy, dramatic thought like _"I would lay down my whole life for you"_ came into Jongho's head as he sat there, as solid and stockstill as a stone fortress, watching the gentle rise and fall of Yeosang's chest beyond the sweet little bit of forehead poking out from between the thick fall of his fluffy, white-blond bangs, the graceful point of his nose and dark sweep of his eyelashes lying gently closed over his cheeks. His poor, beautiful, gentle, innocent Yeosangie-hyung who never deserved any part of this...

How horrifying life was, Jongho thought, that it could visit such sudden and uncalled for violence into the mundanest of times and places, then bring it all back so quickly to such unfitting quiet, as though this were any ordinary night made for ordinary things like sleeping and longing and dreaming of this very head lying willingly upon this very shoulder. How wrong it was that such a long-sought happiness should be found in the midst of such tragedy. How could such an act of unlove and violation answer Jongho's long-held wish for closeness--a wish borne of love--with Yeosang, bring him this precious warmth pressed against his left arm and shoulder? Was it right for such terrible and wonderful things to sit right up against one another, nestled together like he and Yeosang were right now? Jongho didn't know, couldn't put into words the many tumultuous and confusing things whirling inside him just then. All he was sure of was the warm press of that body against him, and that it filled his heart with unadulterated joy, even knowing that it held to him only for safety, not love, but that didn't matter anyway. Jongho would not fail it again--even though he had no right, and he was not Yeosang's lover and perhaps never would be.

Holding the rest of his body utterly calm and still, Jongho lifted his face skyward, the agony of joy and rage and sorrow and guilt all warring upon it on this night, only ever to be seen by whatever invisible arbiters of fate and fortune circulated in the heavens far above their mortal troubles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, next chapter for sure -- Yunho returns!! And we're almost to the end... thank goodness. I have so many other, non-angst fics for the GAY-teez Universe half-written that I need to finish and post. But first, we've gotta see this sad AU through to the end...
> 
> Thanks again for reading, everyone, and Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year! :-D


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